Caskett Prototype
by MidnightIndigo
Summary: Murder is generally straightforward, but Agent Westfield and whatever the heck agency he's with doesn't really do straightforward.


**A/N: Inspired by Clone Army by MyNameIsJeffNImLost. Challenge won. :D I don't normally write Castle science fiction, but this was too good to resist. Hopefully it turns out okay. I kind of like it. I hope you do too, even if it's a little different than what anyone would normally write, haha. I'm just a freak. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Castle.**

"I bet it was an assassin."

Beckett raised an eyebrow at her partner. "An assassin? Really?"

"Well, you shot down my spy idea," he pouted. "_Again._"

"So you try _assassin?_" He opened his mouth to counter, but her phone rang and she grabbed it, cutting him off. "Beckett."

"Hey, you need to get down here, I've got something that you _need _to see. And you'll never guess what it is."

"What is it?"

"Come down and I'll show you."

"Ugh, fine." She made a face. "Thanks, Lanie, we'll be right there." She hung up and looked at Castle. "Come on, Lanie's got something for us. She says we'll never guess what it is."

Castle had already pushed aside any resentment toward her skepticism. He grinned widely, smirking slightly. "That sounds like a challenge to me."

She rolled her eyes and grabbed her jacket and purse, stalking off toward the elevator. He smiled smugly as he slipped inside after her.

"She's going to confirm my theory."

Beckett gritted her teeth. "It was not an assassin," she insisted for the fifth time during the car ride.

"Okay, let's see. Our vic is the assassin! Ooh, how about he's a secret agent posing as an assassin!"

She looked at him. "You know you just managed to link two of your most ridiculous ideas in one."

"That's what I do," he grinned.

Her phone on the dashboard tray vibrated, and Castle lunged to grab it before she could. "Both hands on the wheel," he scolded teasingly, hitting answer. "Detective Beckett's phone," he said in an annoying falsetto.

"My voice does not sound like that," she snapped, but he wasn't listening.

"Um, sorry?" Ryan asked.

Castle cleared his voice quickly. "Um, hi, Beckett's driving. What's up?"

"There's another body, killed the same way. Knife straight through the stomach. I'll text you the address."

"Great, thanks, we'll be right over."

She glared at him as he hung up. "We have to go see Lanie."

"Nope, that was Ryan. We got another one, same MO." The phone buzzed again. "Ooh, address." He showed her the message.

She exhaled in annoyance. "That's in the complete opposite direction. I don't see why they can't murder people close to the morgue."

"Don't let Lanie hear you say that," he grinned. "I think she likes getting out."

"Yeah, well." She put on her left blinker at the intersection. "Text her and let her know we're going to be a little late."

"Hey!"

They spun around to see Esposito striding toward them. "Took you forever, geez."

"Sorry, we were on our way to the morgue."

"Well, come on, you're going to love this."

Castle and Beckett looked at each other and shrugged, following. Esposito took them up to the fourth floor of the apartment building, filling them in as the elevator climbed. "So the murder happened in the hallway, about an hour ago. The vic was with her friend, and some dude ran out of the elevator, stabbed her, and sprinted down the stairs."

"He killed one girl and just left the other?"

Esposito nodded, the corners of his mouth quirking up.

"The friend get a good look?"

"Oh, yeah, we got a sketch. And _that _is the part you're going to love."

The elevator doors opened with a ding; Beckett glanced sideways at him but he didn't catch it.

The body lay on the floor, Dr. Perlmutter kneeling over it, the friend was sobbing to a cop. Ryan approached them, smiling gleefully and holding a sketch to his chest.

"Would you just give me the damn sketch?" she snapped, snatching it out of his hands and eliminating his smirk. She flipped it over and she and Castle looked at it for a second, before both their jaws dropped.

"But that's…"

"Castle?"

The picture was almost an exact replica of the writer. He gaped at it, cocking his head. "Is this a prank? Like, where's the real sketch?"

"This is the real sketch," Ryan smirked. "Turn around, dude, we're going to have to take you in."

"I—ah—" Beckett put his hand on his shoulder to stop him. "As much as I'd love to arrest him—"

"Hey!"

"Castle was in traffic with me on the way to the morgue an hour ago. He couldn't have done this. I'm vouching for him."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Ryan and Esposito glanced at each other with delight as Beckett's phone rang once again.

"What?" she answered irritably.

"Are you almost done? I need to show you these fingerprints!"

"We already know who he is!"

"Yeah, but these aren't our vic's. They were on the body."

"Why can't you just tell me?" she snapped, mildly curious.

"Girl, just get over here." The line went dead.

Beckett stared at her phone incredulously. "She hung up on me."

"Going to the morgue?" Castle asked excitedly.

She cocked her head. "I almost think you like seeing Lanie better than me."

"Nah, I prefer the dead bodies to both of you."

"Who are you? Perlmutter?

The ME, hovering near the body, yelled, "I heard that!"

"Better go before he adds you to his collection," Ryan muttered.

Beckett snorted. "Come on, Castle, I know you're dying to know who the killer is."

Forty minutes later they'd reached the morgue. As soon as they strode through the doors, Lanie near attacked them, pushing the file of printouts into her hands. "Check this out."

"Hi to you too," Beckett replied, dropping her purse on an unoccupied counter.

Castle was almost salivating over the folder in her hands. "Please just open it already. This is killing me."

She raised an eyebrow and opened the file to see two fingerprints, side by side, one the partial print from the body, the other with a name below it. "DET. KATHERINE BECKETT, NYPD."

"Whoa!" Castle yelped as if he'd been shocked.

"What?" Beckett gaped at the prints, and her own dossier underneath, which Lanie seemed to have printed out for dramatic effect, as she was sort of giggling behind her hand. "That's impossible!" She examined her finger, comparing it to both prints, and there was no doubt that it was a match.

"Well, our witness just described me," Castle pointed out.

"Witness did what?" Lanie asked.

Beckett's phone rang again, restricted number. She groaned and answered as Castle launched into the story. She tuned him out. "Beckett?"

"Hello, Detective, this is Agent Westfield. I need to speak to you and Mr. Castle at the Twelfth Precinct as soon as possible."

She was hung up on for the second time that day. She stared at the phone. "That was Agent Westfield. Apparently he needs to talk to us."

"Agent Westfield? Ooh, let's go!" Beckett wondered how much caffeine, sugar, alcohol, or combination of the three he'd had today. "By the way, your phone's been ringing a lot."

"And everyone wants us to teleport," she added, rolling her eyes. "Come on, let's go."

Castle stretched as he walked into the precinct. "Wow, I feel like we've been driving forever." He looked at his partner sharply. "You think the entire world came out to add to the traffic today?"

"Sure seemed like it," she yawned. She dropped her purse on the desk and sat down at her computer, booting it up to check her emails. Castle sat down in his own chair, looking around curiously.

"I wonder where Agent Westfield is."

Just then, the agent walked up briskly. "Whoa, did you just time that so you'd walk up at the _same time _as us?"

"No, Mr. Castle, I've been waiting for half an hour. I just had to use the restroom."

"Agent Westfield, nice to see you again," Beckett said, shaking his hand. "You wanted to talk to us?"

"Yes. The case you're working on, you've received some interesting evidence today, correct?"

Beckett watched him closely. "Maybe we should talk in private."

Westfield nodded. The precinct was largely empty, but there were still a few lingering cops working on paperwork or eating lunch at their desks. "That would be a good idea."

They entered an empty office, and Castle and Beckett sat down, though the agent did not.

"You remember, I'm sure, when we had the two of you unconscious."

They both nodded, glancing at each other like, _Obviously_.

"Well, contrary to what we may have led you to believe, we do not generally…detain people. At the time that we had you in our custody, another branch of my, ah, department was performing an experiment, of sorts. An experiment which required human DNA."

They reached the same conclusion at the same time. "Cloning?"

Westfield shifted uncomfortably.

"And you used our DNA?" Beckett asked disbelievingly.

"Yes. And it turned out the experiment was a success—until we began to use them for other experiments. The problem is, the clones are intelligent. We hadn't anticipated that they would be sentient. And when you try to restrain intelligent human beings, what do they do?"

"They revolt," Beckett replied.

"Exactly. And our—your—clones are now running loose in New York."

"Killing people?"

"So it seems."

"Exactly how many of these clones are there?" Castle asked.

"Ten of each of you."

"Oh, God, that's really weird to think about, it's kind of creepy," Castle whispered. Beckett turned her head to glare at him.

"I'm sure if there was any precedent for cloning humans, I'd arrest you, but there is none and I'm sure you have some sort of impunity anyways, so…thank you for sharing this information," Beckett told the agent. "If you're able to, it would be great if you could assist on the investigation."

"Under the circumstances, I believe that's appropriate."

"Well, that's a relief," she muttered sarcastically. "What are these clones like, anyways? Like, compared to us."

"They have recognition memory, but they won't know specific memories. Meaning they recognized me, but they couldn't say where they'd seen me. It's like they have echoes of your memories—and they won't know anything that's happened since November. They also share your mannerisms."

"So all of his clones are obnoxious and self-centered?"

"Hey!" Castle said for the second time that day. "Well, that must means that your clones are disapproving and controlling."

She glared at him again.

"Right," Westfield said. "But not all of them are killing people. In fact, most of them are relatively harmless. There's just the one pair that led the escape. The thing is, each clone has certain character traits that you two possess, so each has a separate part of your personality. Well, human personality in general."

"Like that Star Trek episode where there are two Kirks!" Castle blurted.

"Extremely similar, Mr. Castle," Westfield nodded. "So not all of them are to blame. It'll be difficult to figure out which one is the culprit though."

"Yeah, since they all look the same and have the same DNA and fingerprints," Castle commented.

"Yes." A phone vibrated, and they all checked their own. "It's me," Westfield said, reading the message. "I actually need to go, I have something to do right now. I'll be back."

"Well, what are we supposed to do in the meantime?" Beckett asked, standing as he moved towards the door.

"It shouldn't be too hard to find them, at least one of them. I've noticed that they seem to gravitate toward each other, so it stands to reason that they'd gravitate toward you two as well. And they're always in pairs, always with their matching personality trait counterpart. And they _always _seem to know which one's which, and where each of them are. It's spooky, actually. But the problem is, they're extremely loyal to each other, so you can't let them know you're going to arrest the others or they'll never tell you which is which."

"Great," Beckett muttered.

"You can handle this for now, right, Detective?" Westfield inquired. "Because I really do have to go now."

"Yeah, sure." She watched him leave, looking bewildered. As soon as the door shut on him, she turned to look at Castle. "I am not arresting myself."

"Well, I'm not a cop," he shrugged. "I can't arrest anyone. Look on the bright side: you get to arrest me ten times."

"Or eleven. Besides, I can't arrest them, or it's not going to happen." She leaned against the desk and crossed her arms. "So, what, are we supposed to have a dinner party?"

"Hey, that'd be cool," Castle said excitedly. "It would be like one of those mystery parties where you guess who the killer is! It was Alexis' birthday when she was nine," he interjected indignantly in response to her smirk.

"And did you get a kit or create it yourself?"

He grinned quickly. "I created it myself."

She rolled her eyes and left the room. He followed her hastily into the bullpen. "So what do we do now?"

"Honestly? I have no idea." Esposito and Ryan were nowhere to be found. "We can start by checking anywhere we might go, but I don't see how helpful that would be." She hit the elevator button and waited for it to reach their floor. "I mean, if they're going to go anywhere, it'll be here, but I don't want to wait around."

He knew how she felt, patting her hand to let her know that he understood.

The elevator slid open, and they were suddenly face to face with themselves. Still in the same position, his hand over hers, they froze, mouths slightly open.

"You must be…Caskett 2? Or Caskett 7?" the clone Beckett said, sounding at the same time confused and completely authoritative and knowledgeable.

"Nope, they're…the prototype!" clone Castle exclaimed excitedly.

Castle and Beckett (the real ones) looked at each other.

"Which is good, because we were looking for you," he continued.

"We understand you've been investigating a pair of murders—" clone Beckett added.

"How do you know that?" Castle asked. He and Beckett were trying very hard on each other's clone to avoid looking at themselves. It was _creepy_.

"Well, one of your clones starts offing people? Law of the universe requires you to catch it," his clone exclaimed.

Beckett put both hands on her head and turned to take a few steps back. "I'm sorry, this is too weird. Ryan and Esposito need to take this one, I cannot do this."

"Well, that would be difficult, seeing as how knowing your killer makes it easier to catch the killer, and no one knows you better than yourself," her counterpart reminded her.

"Well, no one except yourself and maybe us," Castle's clone corrected. "Us meaning Castle and myself."

"You don't know me as well as you think," both Becketts insisted. The real one looked at her clone apprehensively.

Meanwhile, both Castles replied, "I think you underestimate me, Detective."

Beckett caught her partner's eye questioningly, and then quickly looked away.

"Anyways," clone Beckett said, not thrown the slightest bit off guard. "Can we come in? We feel we can sort of help your investigation."

"Of course," Beckett said, letting them pass and staring at Castle pointedly. "Our pleasure."

As the clones helped themselves to coffee in the break room, the real Castle and Beckett conversed quietly near Beckett's desk.

"It's a very good thing everyone's gone," Beckett commented, watching herself through the open blinds.

"Where is everybody, anyways?" Castle wondered.

"I don't know, I know a lot of people had cases. Plus, I think a bunch of them went to lunch. And I'm pretty sure Montgomery went home to take a nap," she grinned.

"They went out to eat without us? Ouch!"

"I think they figured we were busy with Westfield," she replied. She continued to watch the clones. "This is the weirdest thing I've ever done."

Castle nodded. "Tell me about it. Which ones do you think they are, anyways?" 

"Huh?" She looked at him in confusion.

"Westfield said they are all in pairs, and each has a specific dominant personality trait. So which are they?"

"We're the intelligent ones." They jumped and turned to find their counterparts standing behind them.

"Apparently you're also the silent ones," Castle muttered resentfully.

"We got the brains of the family," his clone joked, ignoring him.

"And apparently the humor," Beckett snorted.

"We aren't just smart," her clone shot back. "We have little touches of the other traits as well."

"What are the different traits?"

The clones looked at each other, thinking. "Well, starting with Caskett One, there's the humorous sarcastic ones, there's really really nice, us, awkward and confused, fun—"

"Crazy," clone Beckett corrected, rolling her eyes.

"—creative-slash-artistic, passionate, malicious, super loyal, and hardcore."

Castle and Beckett looked at each other in bewilderment. He mouthed, '_Eight_,' and she nodded. Then she turned back to them. "Wait, so what does Caskett mean?"

"Well, instead of saying Castle and Beckett, they just combined them into Caskett to make it easier."

"Hey, that would be our couple name!" Castle said excitedly. "Like Esplanie!"

"Except we're not a couple," Beckett snapped.

The clones looked at each other and smirked. "I'm surprised there's none of us who are solely in denial," clone Castle muttered.

Beckett glared at him. Her clone quickly caught the look and glanced into her coffee cup. "Hey, look at that, I need more coffee. Wanna come get some more with me?"

Beckett narrowed her eyes but agreed.

"That was close, my friend," Castle said, clapping his clone on the shoulder, before pulling his hand back and looking at it weirdly. He shook his head and shook it off, then continued, "So, passionate…" He leaned forward excitedly, eyes dancing. "Exactly how passionate?"

"They basically just stand there and make out all day," the clone grinned back.

Castle snorted. "Sooo not realistic."

As soon as Beckett took a sip of her fresh cup of coffee, she felt better. Maybe she was just tired.

"Wow, you're as dependent on coffee as they told us," her clone commented, drinking her own coffee, perched on the arm of the sofa.

"Are you 'dependent on coffee' too?" Beckett snorted.;

"Are you kidding? We practically live off the stuff."

Beckett cringed slightly. "I guess that's my fault."

"That's okay. It could be worse."

"Could be protein shakes."

Both of them shuddered at the thought.

"So what's up with this whole clone thing?"

"Well, they made clones of you two, hence our existence."

"No, you guys escaping." Beckett was finding that it wasn't actually that bad talking to herself. It was like talking to one's reflection in the mirror—only now it answered back.

"Ah, well. Sort of like how Germany ended up a superpower during the World Wars, and it took over much older empires, like taking over the ones who'd helped it become a superpower—except more benevolent. Way more benevolent."

Beckett raised an eyebrow. "Okay…but, like, why?"

"At first we all loved the scientists. They were our parents. They taught us _everything._ Everything I just cited about Germany I learned from them. And then they started injecting us and cutting us open." The clone slowly pushed her left sleeve up, wincing slightly. She showed Beckett a long raised red line along the entire length of the inside of her arm. Beckett inhaled quickly, hand over her mouth. As a homicide detective, she'd seen some horrendous things, but this simple scar on a living person's arm (technically her own arm, no less) was easily the most disgusting wound she'd ever encountered.

"I hope you trashed the place," she said quietly. "If there's one thing I know about doctors and scientists, they hate their labs being destroyed."

"We did, those labs are ruined," the clone nodded.

"So how much do you know about…my memories or anything?" Beckett asked, pushing her hair behind her ear then catching herself. She still hadn't forgotten what her onscreen counterpart had told her about doing that as a distraction. _Her onscreen counterpart_…she remembered Ryan mentioning her clone army attacking. It was certainly the case now.

"Oh, well," the clone muttered, unconsciously mirroring the action. She didn't want to answer the question. _Thank you, Natalie Rhodes,_ Beckett thought. Her clone continued unwillingly. "Just mainly face, I think. But I know a lot about you two, and there are random words floating around in my head that I can't connect to anything."

"That's interesting, like wha—" she was cut off by the sound of the elevator sliding open and Castle's voice calling, "Hellooo, anybody here?"

"Oh, no," both Beckett's groaned.

Another pair of clones had found them.

"Who's that?" Beckett asked.

"Caskett 4."

"Which is…"

"The really nice ones."

They hurried into the bullpen, where the two Castles were conversing with the newest set of clones.

"Hey, guys," Beckett said with fake calm. No introductions were made, as none were needed.

"So where's the rest of your—"

The elevator opened once again and eight pairs of clones exited. Castle and Beckett stared, and then Beckett grabbed her partner and dragged into the break room, locking the door behind them.

"This is insane," Beckett muttered, chugging a fresh cup of coffee. Castle watched her in amusement, one eye cocked at her apparent total defense against the scalding of the liquid (though her nerves were probably burned off by now anyway, which would explain it), then turned to look out the blinds.

"They're like a gaggle of geese," he observed.

Beckett scowled at him. "You just wanted an excuse to use the phrase, 'gaggle of geese'," she snapped.

"Maybe," Castle smirked, "but it's definitely appropriate."

"How do we tell who's who now?" she asked. "They're even _wearing _the same thing!"

Castle looked down at his clothes. "The same thing as _us._" Beckett likewise examined her outfit, gaping. "Now that's creepy," he muttered, then looked back up. "But we'll figure it out. We're the best detectives in New York."

"You're _not _a detective," she reminded him.

He shrugged. "You're the best detective, then. I'm the best partner."

She rolled her eyes.

"Come on, we need to get them somewhere before everyone gets back."

Just then the elevator dinged, and they heard, "Holy s—"

Beckett bit her lip anxiously. "How are we going to explain this?"

"Nose goes," Castle said, quickly touching his finger to his nose.

Instead of walking out and adding to the confusion, she pulled out her phone and texted Ryan, '_Break room._" They watched as he checked his phone, then elbowed Esposito and glanced toward the break room. They pushed through the clones and ran into the room. Beckett shut and locked the door behind them.

"Beckett, what the—" Both looked as though they were convinced they'd gone insane.

"Clones," she explained. "Apparently we got fricking cloned."

Esposito gaped at them, then out the blinds. "I don't understand," he said weakly.

"According to Agent Westfield, who so kindly stopped by earlier, when they held us, back in November, they took a DNA sample from both of us and managed to clone us."

The boys must've been completely in shock, but they pushed it aside and took it in stride, making Beckett proud. "So that's how we got your sketch and your prints."

"Exactly. So one of them—well, two of them—are the killers we're looking for."

"But which is which?" Ryan asked.

"Well, they're all in pairs, and apparently each embodies a different…emotion?" She looked to Castle for help.

"Aspects of a person's personality. Only one is predominant in each pair, though they possess all of them, just like any person," Castle clarified with his typical eloquence. Beckett wondered as she often did whether it came from being a writer or if he'd always had it.

"Well, that's…inconvenient," Ryan said.

Beckett took a deep breath and reached for the door. Castle caught her hand in a flash. "What are you doing?" he asked in alarm.

"I'm going to interrogate them! And you all better help me. Because there's twenty of them and one of me." She glared at all of them and they couldn't help but agree. She looked around at them. "Okay. Interrogation. Everyone grab a pair of them and take them into a room. Don't let them stay together. Ready?"

They all nodded grimly. It seemed as though they were going into battle. Castle had the sudden urge to salute, though he didn't feel like Beckett would appreciate it. She opened the door and the four of them stepped out.

Luckily they were still alone; none of them wanted to deal with more people, even though it would probably benefit them. It was when Beckett was considering this that the elevator doors opened for what felt like the millionth time (she could probably go the whole rest of her whole life without hearing her ringtone or that ding ever again) and the Captain stepped out. His eyes went wide at the scene before him. "What the hell?" he said.

Beckett looked to Castle. "You explain."

Beckett sat in front of herself and Castle, thinking to herself that this was honestly the weirdest thing she'd ever done, beating out even getting abducted by government agents. She folded her arms on the metal table and smiled. "So, where have you been all day?"

The pair looked at each other, then back at her. "We've been here. In New York."

She didn't let her clone's answer phase her. "What were you doing this morning?"

Castle-clone shrugged. "Walking around, I guess."

"And…how do you feel right now?"

Both of them said, in sync, "We know what you're trying to do, Detective."

That made her blinked. She started, a shock going through her. _Well shoot._

She met her fellow interrogators outside the rooms. They all seemed to look the frustration she felt. "They know what we want to figure out," Castle said.

"Where did your Agent Westfield go, anyways?" Montgomery asked irritably.

Beckett shrugged. "I don't have a clue, he got a text and left. He said he'd be back later, but I don't know when that is."

"Well, great," Ryan snapped, wrinkling his nose. "This isn't going to work."

"We need to…investigate without investigating," Castle said.

Esposito raised an eyebrow at him. "Bro, what are you even talking about?"

"Just…talk to them. Easy. Strike up a conversation. They're going to display certain…tendencies in their speech," Castle explained. "So eventually one of them has to mess up, and we'll figure it out. We can get them, at least until Westfield gets back."

"What if everyone comes back?" Ryan asked.

Beckett shrugged. "I don't know. I guess it'll have to be explained. I mean…it's not that weird…is it?" She looked around, then made a face. "Yeah, it's that weird."

"Look, just talk," Castle said. "Talking's easy. We talk every day."

Beckett considered it. When she'd been talking to the first clone, earlier, she had noticed automatically how smart that one had been. She nodded. "Shall we try then?"

They walked back out, letting the clones in to mingle with their…siblings? The Captain just stood there and surveyed the chaos. "Jeez, one pair of you two is enough. I don't know if I could keep ten of you guys from killing each other."

"I'd drink to that," Esposito nodded.

Beckett pursed her lips, trying very hard not to comment. Castle wasn't listening; he was sizing up each group, trying to decide where to start. They'd seemed to have spread out beyond their pairs, which would make it even more difficult. "Where to start?" Castle asked.

"I'll take this side, you start over there."

The boys and the Captain remained where they were, looking between themselves and then at the clones. Finally Ryan said, "Well, we're probably not needed, so we're going to…" The three of them escaped to their relative desks, leaving the Caskett prototype to deal with the mess.

Castle had gone through half of these conversations and still had no idea who was who. His irritation was not helped by the fact that Ryan and Esposito, with no killer to catch and no paperwork as of yet, were sitting watching with a bag of microwavable popcorn. He'd had about enough of this and ducked out of the conversation he was currently pretending to be entranced by, making a beeline to the break room once again. He was met at the door by a Beckett, though he wasn't sure whether it was the real one or not. Their eyes met and by unspoken agreement Beckett said, "Red Ferrari?"

"Under the radar," Castle replied. Both of them slipped inside and collapsed for a moment on the couch. "This is tougher than I thought," he commented. He'd largely been chatting with himself; after they'd separated from their relative partners, the clones had mainly clumped into groups of Castles and groups of Becketts. Deciding he would most likely be able to figure out what was going on through his own head, he'd gone for his clones, while Beckett had taken hers. It had been an hour, and Agent Westfield still had not shown up yet. "What are we supposed to do?"

Beckett shrugged, shaking her head. She was as stumped as he was. "I don't have a clue. Crack some sadistic jokes. See who laughs."

"We all laugh at sadistic jokes," Castle pointed out.

Beckett groaned and sunk deeper into the cushions. "This has to be a dream."

"Sorry, sweetheart," she heard Castle's voice. She opened her eyes to see the real Castle sitting next to her, a little bit apprehensive, and another Castle standing in the doorway. She raised an eyebrow.

"What do you want? Who are you?" she asked snappishly.

He grinned at her. "_I'm _your dream." He stalked over and sat next to her. She cocked her head nervously, as Castle cringed slightly on her other side. This had to be the one who was always making out with her clone that was his pair. She closed her eyes, exhaling to release all the pent-up annoyance that she was ready to take out on either him, _her _partner, or a cushion. None would help; taking it out on the clone would just get the others mad at them, Castle would go all sulky for the afternoon, and she would have to pay for the cushion if she tore the stuffing out of it. It was a long shot to hold back breaking his fingers, however, when he put one hand on her shoulder and said, "I understand, Kate."

"Don't call me Kate," she snapped, stiff as a board.

"Why not?" he asked cheerfully. There was nothing anyone could do to bring this guy down off his dreamy little cloud nine. Yeah, more like LSD-induced cloud nine.

"Because I'm your partner," she reminded him. His smile only widened.

"But it doesn't have to be like that," he said, leaning toward her. She was about to pull back when she caught Castle sitting up straight in her peripherals, and his head snapped towards her. She felt his hand on her back, pushing her into his clone, and the clone kissed her.

His hand wouldn't move to let her up, and the clone continued to kiss her, his tongue playing on her lips—she tried not to but she couldn't really help kissing back, especially when his clone was just as good, possibly better, or better judging from one undercover kiss, a kisser as he was. She grabbed his hand behind her back, determined to break _his _fingers, but he let her go and she pulled away to see another clone standing in the doorway.

"Wait…" her clone frowned, looking at the three of them on the couch. "Who are you then?" she asked the real Castle.

Castle raised an eyebrow at his real partner, ignoring the question. "Confuse tactics?"

She glared at him, her jaw set, as she wiped her mouth. The clone who had walked in continued to watch the three of them. "I don't…I don't understand," she said, pouting slightly.

Castle grinned at Beckett. "Confused," he said pointedly, nodding to the clone.

And she understood.

They locked the two they'd already determined in the break room (it locked just as easily from the outside as the inside, if you had a key, which Beckett did) and stepped out into the bullpen, where their clones were running rampant. Several detectives had returned, and a group had surrounded Ryan and Esposito's desk, once they'd gotten over their initial shock. Neither Castle nor Beckett caught any of the cops' eyes, instead heading straight for Beckett's desk. "What do we do?" Beckett asked out of the corner of her mouth.

"Just pick a trait."

"What are the traits again?"

"Um…I'm not sure…just pick something and act like it. Odds are there's a trait for it."

Another set of clones approached. The clones had once again gravitated into their pairs, and there were two who stood to the side of a couple of sets, three-wheeling it awkwardly. Both of them picked up on those but didn't grab them yet. Maybe they could figure out who was who without having to one by one lock them all in the break room. Besides, those two who were missing their pair weren't a threat, nor were they going anywhere.

"Hey, guys!" Castle said cheerfully, trying to be as nice as possible. Beckett caught on and fixed a huge smile on her face. "How are you doing? Today's been crazy, hasn't it?"

"Dude," Castle-clone snorted. "You sound like My Little Pony or something." His partner laughed uproariously.

"Sorry, we just kind of think it's cool, all of us being in the precinct," Beckett added, saving him. "You know, including the prototype."

"Yeah, it's great," Castle said. "Well, we're going to get some water or something. Bye!"

They walked away, attempting very hard not to laugh or mess up. "The funny ones," Beckett muttered. Castle nodded. They moved on. Their charade seemed to be working. With so many of them in the same place, it was difficult to tell who was who, including for the clones who were trying to sort through all twenty of them. Beckett snorted as they watched another group, who were fist-pumping over the radio, which was playing the 80s. "Definitely not them," she commented, pulling him to the next pair. They went through four more, easily identifying them. But when they reached the last two pairs, they frowned. It should've been the smart ones, the first they'd met, and the killers, but all four were talking seriously, no emotion betrayed on their faces. As they walked up, Castle shuddered slightly.

"They're like Vulcans," he pointed out.

Beckett couldn't help but agree. It was creepy watching them talk about something so deep, or so it seemed.

But when they walked up, they realized that the conversation consisted of reciting plotlines from Temptation Lane. Beckett frowned. Castle hadn't known about the TV show when they'd been cloned. Shoot. They were covering for each other.

Even scarier was the look they received from the four they hadn't identified. "You're the prototype," all four said in sync, like robots.

They suddenly felt the rest of the clones at their backs and to either side and they stepped closer together for comfort. It was scary, being intimidated by oneself.

"Castle," Beckett whispered. "Do you know which one?"

He didn't respond. Instead he put an arm around her protectively the moment something poked her forward in the spine. She shivered again. But Castle said, "An hour ago you said you'd help us with the case."

She looked at him; he wasn't focused on one pair in particular between the two left. "You will not get us that easily," they all said, together once again. It was seriously unnerving.

"Okay," Castle shrugged. "I just thought you'd like to know: I've learned a lot from you in the past few hours."

Two of the four frowned, and the other two narrowed their eyes, and immediately they leapt forward and grabbed the two who had given themselves away.

"One little facial expression," Castle commented as he held onto his own clone. Beckett cuffed both of them, then let out the two they'd locked inside, replacing them with the criminals.

Agent Westfield showed up just in time to collect them. "Well, you were some help," Castle snorted as they surveyed the other eight rather solemn clones.

"I had business to attend to," he said stiffly. "But you figured it out on your own, didn't you?"

"You know, I think we did," Castle commented, staring off at the wall cryptically. Both Beckett and Westfield frowned.

Beckett recovered first, used to dealing with him, and said, "You should take them back to a lab, but don't perform experiments. They don't seem to like that."

"Thanks for the heads-up," Westfield said, the tiniest bit of humor in his eyes. "They'll be kept safe until their deaths, I promise."

"Until their deaths, are they being executed?" Castle asked, shocked.

"No, Mr. Castle, they are merely dying. Clones, we've found, don't live very long. They're approaching the end of their lifetimes soon."

Both Castle and Beckett frowned as he walked away to talk to the clones. He was taking the killers off their hands as well, which was good, since putting two clones in jail under the names 'Katherine Beckett' and 'Richard Castle' probably wouldn't work out very well.

They pushed aside every question left in their head. Beckett left it up to him to change the subject. She should've known better, though.

"Soo…Caskett. That's a little ironic for a homicide detective and a murder mystery writer."

She glared at him and stalked off.

Ten minutes later they ran into each other once again, and like the first time they brought up a piece of their past together that had occurred within the past few months.

"Thank you," Castle said.

Beckett smiled slightly. "Always."

"So, you two going to start making out?"

They turned to look at Ryan and Esposito, leaning against the doorframe. "What do you want?" Beckett groaned. They looked at each other, smirking, then back at them.

"Nothing, obviously. Do we have to want something to talk to you guys? But anyways, good job today. We would never have been able to do it."

"That's because they didn't clone you," Castle commented.

"Well, don't let us get in the way of anything," Esposito said quickly, and both of them ducked around the pair.

"Crazy day, huh?" Castle said.

She nodded absently, as though she wasn't quite all there at the moment, in her sleep-deprived, caffeine-withdrawal state.

"Look, Beckett…" She looked up in surprise. She'd expected him to keep talking but not to be hesitant about it. "Look, they were right. All of those traits…you'd see all of them in one person. One person isn't meant to just be predominantly one trait. It's…wrong. And we seem sort of…one-sided right now. So…" Instead of finishing his sentence he took a step forward and put his arm around her waist, pulling her towards him instead of pushing her away towards an incomplete version of him. He dipped his head slightly to meet her, and when they kissed it was nothing the way she'd kissed his clone. It was so much easier, so much lighter, and so much better than anything the clone could've come up with.

When he pulled away he watched her eyes anxiously, but he didn't find anything in them that told him that she was going to keep pushing him away. Instead she smiled. "Thanks, Castle. I guess it took twenty clones to figure that one out, huh?"

Ryan passed once again. "We all figured it out years ago," he informed them as he walked around them.

They didn't take their eyes off of each other, giggling as he said it. Beckett could still feel his warm hand on her lower back and she leaned her head against his chest.

"Caskett," Esposito muttered, walking after his partner and pausing only for a fraction of a second to watch them cuddle. "It's pretty catchy."

**A/N: Wow, long! It's good for me. :D And in case anyone cares, this is my 42****nd**** story. I'm pretty proud of myself, haha. Specifically for picking up on the number. Don't forget to let me know what you thought! (:**

**-Indy **


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